


Glory and Gore (Go Hand in Hand)

by blackravenswing



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-08 20:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1955058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackravenswing/pseuds/blackravenswing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*CURRENTLY ON HIATUS*</p><p>Turns out it isn't easy to walk away from the person who changed your story... and she is written into his history as indelibly as the Caesars of Rome. </p><p>Alternate ending to season 1. Clarke and Bellamy must deal with the consequences of a protracted war, for both their dwindling society and each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to the war

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost, this fic is dedicated to my lovely Ava <3 Consider this a virtual gift hamper dearie (please forgive the absence of foodie comestibles!) I hope these words bring a little warmth to your soul during such difficult times; know that I'm thinking of you and sending my warmest hugs and best wishes.  
> Special mention must also be made of a trio of truly remarkable ladies. To Bettina and Drew: your work is an inspiration, as are your constant encouragements of my own writing. This story would not be here without your loveliness <3 And last but not least, to my Yana: your unfailing willingness to discuss every detail of these characters with me has formed the cornerstone of all my writing - this is all your fault and I love you for it!

They're fighting in a war and they're dying like soldiers, with spears in their bellies and jagged splinters of teeth for smiles. Blood pours from their bodies like life is going out of fashion - and maybe it is, for what would Clarke Griffin know of living? Death is her trade, her constant companion and her currency these days. Silent veins and blueing lips are the only certainties that remain to her.

 

The first sky-born life she loses on the operating table is a girl called Zephyr, a child with eyes too wide and bones still growing. Blood froths at her lips as Bellamy lays her down; five heartbeats shy of dead before Clarke has even drawn the arrow free.

_Anti-venom under the tongue, immediate extraction of the weapon, pressure to wound_.

She does everything right.

_Palms off-centre on the ribcage, short sharp beats over the heart, head tilted back, air blown into the lungs_.

She does everything by the book, and it isn't enough. The girl floats from life with a sigh as gentle as her name.

_Welcome to the war_ , the shadows whisper.

Clarke snatches up the lethal barb, hurls it beyond the wall and screams.

 

She's ready for them after that: the stuttering souls who are carried back to camp for the inestimable privilege of dying in Clarke Griffin's arms. And it never fails to hurt, but it gets easier. _She makes it easier_. Learns to freeze the twinging of her heart; to distance herself from the emotions, the people, the implications. There is no room for anything but reason and logic in this brave new world of hers: heart beats per minute, another stitch in the wound, counted bandages and tallied graves. Screams and tears are irrelevant. Gentle fingers, and warmth, and easy smiles - _all irrelevant_. Facts over feelings, head over heart: this is the only way she knows how to fight.

_They all give what they can._

So she takes the losses of her short life and twists them into steely threads, sewing shut the entrances to her heart.

And it costs her.

It costs dearly.

For the distance permeates; the coldness seeping like an illness through her body, too difficult to contain, impossible to compartmentalise. She cannot keep the dying at arms' length and continue to embrace the living; the boundaries are too thin to trust these days. And so she grows sharper, more controlled, more reserved…

Life means everything, yes, but it feels like nothing.

And this is the cost of sanity.

This is what it means to survive a war.

 

It's been nineteen months since they landed and they're all taller now. Faces leaner and eyes wilder, more scars than skin it often seems; completely different people to the children that hurtled down from space all that time ago. Would their parents even know their faces now? Clarke doubts it in her darkest hours, when she tosses beneath the blanket of an entire camps' nightmarish screams. Memories and fears, fears and memories, they blur into one and there is no end. Everyone takes it differently - with mad hope, with hopeless madness. Some snap and snarl against the tension, some grit their teeth to silence and carry on, and others still joke their way into the jaws of death. Yet they all manage to brush it aside when the fighting lulls; to sit with friends and share stories, to smile, and bicker, and be young. None of them are quite like Clarke. She isn't sure she could remember how to laugh, even if she wanted to.

They lost the Ark from the very beginning; all hope of backup severed in a burning trail across the sky. Alone, they are a pinprick of importance on the surface of the Earth, just waiting to be engulfed by the terrors that surround them. And ever since Clarke crossed a bridge and started a war, she's felt painfully, irrationally responsible.

Graves have multiplied from two, to fourteen, to twenty-eight.

_Twenty-eight._

It is a number that haunts her every waking moment. A number that means an awful lot, when all you have is a hundred souls to sacrifice. Every patient she tends to, every weapon wrenched free, every gaping tear frantically sewn closed, she cannot help but wonder: will this be the one, will this be twenty-nine?

She thinks it now as the patrol returns, makeshift soldiers bursting through the gates with rifles on their backs and fallen friends slipping through their arms - kids that she once knew. Raven leads the pack, the camp already echoing with her roughly barked encouragements. Jasper and Miller flank her sides as she ushers the others through, sinking their weather-beaten boots into the mud surrounding the gate and scanning the world through crosshairs as a dozen more hunters and trackers and bomb-builders stagger into the relative safety of camp, all in various shades of living.

The majority of the squad had been recruited for simple food acquisition, laying traps and snares this side of the river; prepared for hunting if the opportunity arose. A subset of the group were more select: trackers and sharp shooters, chosen to continue past the boundaries to the Grounders' main camp and spy for intel, signs of upcoming attacks. She'd heard the gunshots heralding them home, knew already that something had gone wrong. The dropship infirmary echoes in preparation as she stands at the entrance and waits for them to be delivered into her arms.

Dreading the injury count, her keen eyes isolate two embedded arrows and a broken-off spear in the crowd. Finn and Monroe, both members of the espionage group, stagger in at the rear of the line with an injured girl - _knife wound_ \- strung between them. Bellamy follows close on their heels, his trigger finger hooked in readiness as he guards their backs.

'Get those gates ready to close!'

He's shouting orders forward before he's even made it into camp.

'Fox, Jarod, Jones - straight to the wall. Monroe, I need you with the guards, Finn can carry her from here. I want all sentry points covered til nightfall, get moving people!'

Fresh marksmen flock to the watch posts at his orders, the remainder of the camp forming a protective circle around the returned, dashing forward to greet friends and grasp at the hands of the bleeding and fallen.

Finally the gates rattle closed and dark eyes search her out methodically, passing on the power balance with an exhausted nod. Clarke tilts her chin sharply in return, raising her voice from the entrance of the dropship.

'All wounded to the infirmary, _stat_. You can hug each other later.'

The bloodiest are dragged forward, their commander trailing behind. But when Finn stumbles tiredly at the incline of the ramp its Bellamy who reaches him in time, steadying him with a swift handhold to the back of his tattered jacket.

'Need a hand, Spacewalker?' he asks gruffly.

And Finn simply nods, wearily accepting the help of the man he once hated; pacifist and soldier, side by side. Horror, it seems, is the instrument of compromise. It would be enough to make her smile if she still had a heart

 

Bellamy rejoins her outside as the last of the wounded trickle through, and she offers him the full attention of her gaze. Blood carves rivers down his chest, his knuckles scuffed raw and weeping, but he is undeniably ( _mercifully_ ) alive.

'What happened?' she demands, and she doesn't mean to sound so cold, but he takes them out each day only to drag them home broken; upending the twisted shards of people into her arms with so much faith that she can fix them. And there's a part of her, a speck of illogicality, that resents him for that; which can never quite forgive.

'We got caught inside the Grounders' camp.'

'You _what_? You told me you were only scouting!' She's been picking distractedly at the hem of his shirt, trying to un-stick it from his bloody skin and search for entry wounds, but at his words her fingers tighten reflexively, nails digging into his waist with the sharpness of unsheathed claws.

'Ouch!' He twists away, batting her hands aside. 'Knock it off Clarke, it's not my blood.'

She tugs his shirt back down and glares. 'Why the hell would you go inside?'

'We found something.'

She cannot restrain her hiss of disgust. 'Yeah, _Grounders_.'

_'No_ , we found their supply tent-'

'So you thought all these lives were worth a little extra food? God, I can't _believe_ you.'

She turns away, predicting the reaching grasp of his arm - _oh yes, they've done this dance before_ \- and darting to the side to avoid him.

'Clarke, wait! You need to hear this.'

Whirling on him one final time, she hisses furiously. ' _No_. You promised me you would play it safe today, that there would be less killing - you _promised_ me.'

Her voice wavers alarmingly and she turns again before she can crack, breathing sharply through her nose.

_Lock it down Griffin, keep it together_.

Retreating to the dropship and what she knows waits for her inside is almost more than she can bear. But she stiffens her spine with the lead from her heart and drags herself into the jaws of hell without him, muttering as she steps beneath the shadow of the doorway.

'These lives are on you, Bellamy Blake.'

 

Twenty minutes later and the med bay is chaos. She's got four kids laid out on makeshift beds with serious injuries, another five, less life threatening, lined up to take their place, and it's costing every ounce of her concentration to keep them all from dying. Distributing two blunted needles, a tangle of electrical wire and a finite quantity of sterilised bandages across nine bodies with only one set of reasonably educated hands is _hard_. The pain is largely unrelieved, a slug of moonshine here, a sip of willow bark tea there; nothing comes close to dulling the rasp of metal on muscle and bone, the twisting in their innards, the jab and pull of the needle in their skin. Most of them scream, all of them weep. She blocks it out as best she can, knows she will hear them again when she sleeps. The echoes never really leave her, in her dreams they always die.

When someone grabs her arm she twists herself free immediately, without a single glance.

'It can wait,' she snaps.

But the fingers return, tighten, drag her inescapably aside. She already knows its him. No one else would even dare.

'Clarke.' Something in his tone suggests that he's been saying her name for a while.

She hustles her arm from his grasp for a second time, and he relinquishes the hold reluctantly. He has her now anyway, has wrenched her from her orbit, and all she can think as she glares into his eyes is that this better be important or there'll be hell to pay. There'll be death to pay.

'What?' she hisses, her fingers curling in the sudden stillness. ' _What_ is so important?'

His throat flutters and she wonders briefly if she frightens him these days, but then his jaw tightens and all vulnerability is brushed aside.

'There's something I need to show you.'

She does not follow.

'You're going to want to see this.' And it’s a warning now.

Octavia pauses beside them in passing, always attuned to their mood swings. A dozen rolls of improvised bandages are queued along her arm, her free hand fisted with wire.

'I've got this for now,' she offers.

And she does, but it's still so hard to step away.

Clarke weighs the balance, every consequence she can foresee.

'Five minutes,' she grants him tersely.

Octavia nods in understanding and reels away, distributing commands with a sharp certainty so reminiscent of her brother.

Further from the chaos, Bellamy kneels and drops a fraying backpack to the metal floor. It rattles like bones and hollow promises.

'Five minutes,' she reminds him.

Deft fingers unclasp the buckles and pause beneath the flap.

'I'll take what I can get,' he mutters, but he does not move with haste. He does not move at all. Rain-damp curls weep water beneath the press of gravity, breaths marking time like the ticking of a metronome, and the void grows heavy with the weight of too many things unsaid; years of growing colder, of the distance between them getting harder and harder to breach.

'If you could make a wish right now,' he utters finally, 'what would it be?'

'What are you talking about?'

'Don't tell me you've forgotten those damn stars.'

She is even less interested in fables now than she was at the start of their tale; her eyes hardened to a different kind of truth, one that leaves no space for fancy or fiction. The way she knows it, every legend is lined with shadows, a darkness that waits eagerly for the hope to rise only to rip away the veil, to suck out the light and beauty of a moment like marrow drawn from pale white bones - until all that remains is hollowness. But even then… _yes_. _She still remembers the stars_.

Ever-tired, her joints crack as she kneels beside him, waves the memories aside.

'You're not making any sense.'

'Why does _everything_ have to make sense with you? Just answer the goddamn question.'

She's been trying to give him a chance. Trying not to count the seconds passing; not to tap her foot and think of death, slipping into the room while her back is turned. But she's had it now and she's not playing games. The urgency of this world is insatiable, a turning screw that tightens with every breath she wastes, and she holds no meaning to the concept of patience anymore.

'This is ridiculous.' Snatching forward like a two-year old she makes a gamble for the backpack, but he's quick enough to maintain his grasp, wrenching back as she tugs forward, the contents of the bag echoing between them.

'Cut it out, Princess.'

'I. Don't. Have. Time.'

The words grind like pebbles between their teeth but neither relents. Finally he changes tactics, snapping his grasp from the bag to her wrists, twisting her fingers free and slapping her palms to the floor beneath his own.

'Just _slow down,_ Clarke.' There's a desperation to his voice which suggests that the moment is careening rapidly beyond what he intended. 'Slow down and look at me.'

She doesn't. Her anger is boiling fiercely now, and she focuses instead on sliding her hands out from under his.

' _What is going on._ '

'Would you just look at me?'

She relents.

…and immediately regrets it.

Anticipation makes him seem younger, the hollowed planes of his face momentarily softened, his eyes warmer than she's seen in months, stirring with an unexpected _hopefulness_. Her very blood recoils; rushes fearfully towards her heart, filling it to pounding and leaving her limbs numb and useless. She can handle death, fear, destruction; she's made her peace with the sentiments of the doomed. But hope is a terror she cannot withstand.

'It's okay.' He swallows audibly at the expression on her face.

But it's not okay, not even close. His eyes demand too much, goading her to _feel something_. No, she doesn't want to know anymore; shrinks back as he withdraws his grasp and opens the bag.

Its filled with metal boxes.

He draws one out; turns it beneath the light. It tinkles like chimes as it moves, like tin and glass, and the smooth lid is stamped with an unmistakable red cross.

_What would you wish for?_

He rests the box across her knees.

_It's probably empty. Or broken. Or expired._

Now he is the impatient one, reaching forward in the wake of her stillness, flipping open the lid with an exasperated sigh.

And she cannot close her eyes.

Scalpel blades and suture needles gleam, blinding to her yearning gaze, regular and orderly as a bullets in an ammunition belt. Trembling fingers trace along their silver spines, pressing skin to the pointed blades - daring them to cut her - _and they bite back_ , sharpened to perfection. Reels of suture thread nestle between packets of dismantled syringes; rolls of tape and steri-strips pad the corners of the box. And at the bottom, woven between ribbons of gauze, bottles clink like buried treasure, their various liquids rippling against glass with whispered promises of endings and beginnings intertwined.

Her hands dive in at the first label she reads, excitement and trepidation fizzing in her bloodstream, chemically bonding into a new, intoxicating compound.

'My god, is this morphine?'

Glass clinks as she scuttles further through the box.

'Intravenous antibiotics? Epinephrine? Do you know what this means?'

_The things we could treat. The people we could save._

_Do you know? Do you see?_

_Do you realise what you've done?_

The clear contents quake at the tremors of her touch so she curls the bottle against her palm to hide the shaking. Squeezes shut her eyes to hide everything else.

'I don't understand.' Her voice is not her own. 'How did you- _Where_ did you find these? I've seen the Grounder's medical supplies, they're utterly basic. They don't have this level of expertise.'

'We watched them return from a raid,' he replies warily. 'Stolen supplies of all sorts, not just medical. Damned if I know where they got it all but when I saw the med packs I knew we had to risk it. That's why we went in.'

Here is where she opens her eyes. And he's looking right at her. He's watching so closely.

'You were right,' she tells him.

And his eyes ignite at her words.

She doesn't want to speak anymore, she knows the risks. It isn't necessary. It isn't logical to share. But she owes him this; he deserves these words.

'It's been… very difficult,' she begins.

_Lock it down Griffin._

'Fighting for their lives with practically _nothing_ on my side.'

_Keep it together._

'But _this_ … this is going to save people, Bellamy. This is going to change things.'

_Do you realise what you've done?_

The air crackles as he empties out the backpack, lining up the medboxes between them. _Two, four, six_. _Six boxes_ , filled with mercy.

'I'm always on your side,' he says.

It hits her harder than it should and she has to close her eyes again. Because they don't talk like this these days and she'd thought that maybe they had lost each other, somewhere along the years.

'You and the morphine,' she murmurs lightly. 'That's all I need.'

The screams echo, calling her back, and she snaps shut the lid as she rises to her feet.

'Show time.'

As she moves to leap past him he catches her elbow in one final restraint.

'Clarke. Can I help?'

And she looks at him like he's a mystery, wrapped inside the body of a man.

'Can you?'

He's covered in blood but his hands aren't shaking. _Why did she never see this before_?

'I can sew a straight line of stitches.' There's nothing but confidence in his voice. 'Get me a needle and I'll follow behind you. Close them up as you go?'

She's nodding before she knows what she's really agreeing to. This is her world after all, not his. He's the soldier, she's the healer. They run separate faces of the same camp, they do not blend, she made sure of that. But it's already done, she's let him in. And as she turns towards the screams with him at her back she cannot say she's sorry. Not even slightly.

 

Octavia steps aside as Clarke approaches their most urgent patient, the one she'd written off for want of surgery, for want of medicine. Her fingers no longer shake as she assembles the first syringe and loads it up with morphine; she is a medic after all. The boy doesn't even flinch as she dips the needle into his vein, and she allows herself one gentle touch, a single unnecessary hush of comfort as the clear liquid mingles with his remaining blood. The moans slur, the eyes droop, the breathing evens as the panic ebbs, and she invests a little something - the smallest ice chip of her heart - into the hope that he will make it through the night. Because today she is slightly less afraid. The scalpel sings as she takes it in her hand. Today, she'll make the gamble that these fractured souls will stay.


	2. The Tragedy of Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. And that’s the tragedy of living.”  
> ~ Iain Thomas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Its been awhile... and I'm so damn sorry! For anyone still following this story, here's a small transition chapter to get back into the flow.

**_12 months ago_ **

They've been passing words like bitter pills, back and forth between each other for what feels like weeks now. Mixing tense cooperation with raging accusation; each trying to poison the other before they collapse from their own overpowering toxicity.

'Do you even try to keep them safe out there?' she screams, after he drags what remains of a hunting party home from the aftermath of an ambush.

They lost four kids that day. _Four_.

Unassuming mounds of freshly turned earth settle beside them, displaced by bodies too young to be buried in the ground.

'Do you understand what it's like for me in there? Trying to patch them all together - with what? Bits of electrical wire? One useless needle?' She brands the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. Her skin is bloodied red as usual and she can only imagine the freakish mask her touch has left behind. 'I can't keep doing this Bellamy.'

It’s the closest she's come to crying in months. He won't see her this way again for almost a year, but we never recognise the importance of a moment amidst the blind riot of foresight. So instead he merely annihilates her in return.

' _You_ can't keep doing this?' he laughs and the sound is chilling. 'Fuck that, you're the one who doesn't understand. You may be up close and personal with death in here, but the only person actually thinking of killing you, is _me_. And I know that doesn't terrify you.'

Personal space is non-existent when they're fighting; words so close they fall like blows upon each other's skin.

'It's different out there. We never know what to expect, enemies dropping down from freaking _trees_. I have to take the kids out and I can't protect them. Do you have any idea what _that's_ like?'

'You bring them here to die,' she answers coldly, unmoved. 'Their final moments are on me.'

His jaw grinds against the acrimony as he leans forward for the final word. 'They die out there with me as well, Clarke. I brought bodies home today. _Bodies_. Don't forget that. Don't think that you alone have a reason to shut it all out.'

In truth, they stopped listening to each other months ago.

When he next bothers to speak with her, the girl from the sky is utterly gone. She herself is just a body now; a ticking, turning mind with a stone for a heart.

 

**_Present day_ **

Nearly twelve months later and she's standing in the aftermath of yet another surgery, cradled within the peaceful hum of half-a-dozen patients' morphine induced sighs. The scalpel resting in her palm is the weapon of her choice; she has medicine, _real medicine_ , ordered and stockpiled upon the shelves; and even after the chaos of surgery, that man from the graveyards, the one with his arms filled with bodies and a punching fist for a mouth, is still at her side.

For this night at least, it seems they may have won.

Clarke's shoulders burn with the tension of too many hours spent battling death. Rolling out her muscles with a tired sigh she swirls her bloody hands through the closest water pail, followed by a douse of moonshine. At the hospital beds, Bellamy remains crouched on an upturned crate, threading together a young boy's abdomen with a 1/2 curve surgical needle. His stitches are as military as he is, pulling skin together with uniform precision; she grudgingly admits that they're more perfect than her own.

The patient barely stirs as Bellamy knots the thread and cuts the line, calmed as he is by drops of precious morphine. Octavia supervises the final bandaging, showing her brother how to secure the gauze in place with the metal clips procured from the new supplies. As a final gesture, Bellamy tucks a blanket over the boy's thin chest.

'You handled yourself well today, Thomas. I'm proud of you.' It's only a murmur but she hears it all the same.

The boy's sleepy smile glows in the muted light of dawn; she carries the warmth of it with her into the crisp morning air.

A shoulder nudges tiredly against her own and she holds out the flask of alcohol to sterilise his hands. He hooks his fingers round the neck and downs several aching gulps before she can cry her protest and snatch the bottle back.

'It's for your hands, you idiot,' she chastises, forcefully turning up his palms and loosing a small waterfall across the red-stained skin.

His tongue runs a delirious semicircle across his lower lip in search of errant drops of alcohol.

'Honestly Clarke? If there's one thing we have in tall supply its moonshine. Your priorities are little misguided.'

The arc of his teeth catches the gathering light and her heart skips a beat. She wonders for one insane moment if that dormant, bloodied organ within her chest is falling back into rhythm with his own…

When the sun had set on yesterday she'd witnessed too many damaged humans being carried into this dropship, and doubted in her heart that all would still be breathing by morning. But the new dawn is here and there are still seventy-two people living in this camp.

 _Seventy-two_.

The number feels different today, bigger somehow.

'What now, Princess?' The quiet rumble of his question breaks her thoughts and reverberates like quaking thunder through her bones. Somehow it feels easier to weather the storm with a hurricane on your side.

_Perhaps that is how._

 

* * *

My greatest thanks to Madeleine ([manycoloureddays](http://archiveofourown.org/users/manycoloureddays)); you know what you do and I thank you eternally for it <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is another chapter already written to follow this; if anyone's interested please let me know and I can publish it on the weekend for you! Thoughts, prompts, and general loveliness are always highly welcome <3


	3. You Swallowed the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You eat the stars and lick your fingers.  
> You lead a small army of lost boys into oblivion  
> because you are too lonely to tell them  
> that you haven’t figured out where you’re going."  
> ~Caitlyn Siehl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Bellamy's POV!

She is spun gold and sunshine. Until she isn't.

The first to go are the smiles, sinking across her face like shadows. They turn to sharpness, to stillness, to stone; leeching warmth instead of offering it; fading into extinction on the coattails of a whimper. For a time he detests every quirk of her lips, the falseness grating on his nerves like nothing else. Until one day she doesn't smile at all, and he'd give anything to have that shadow back.

Next are the arms, rising up in wary defence to hold the world at bay. Harsh words, cold silence, distant eyes... He can see the walls building up around her and she locks no one inside but herself. _Oh yes_ , she shuts him out with all the rest.

Perhaps it's that which hurts the most.

 

Their faces bear the same kinds of scars these days - haunted shadows and anger in every glance - and that's not how it's meant to be. He may not understand the world but he knows that much.

He watches her stride through camp on the rare occasions that she exits the med bay, watches how the others nod their heads when she passes by, how none of them stop to talk with her these days, how laughter halts when she draws near. He doesn’t blame them; she wouldn't chat back, wouldn't smile even if they tried to reach her. Every person in this camp knows that she will fight mercilessly for their lives until they heave their final breath. Respect outlasts the memory of her laugh, but love is less resilient. And yet he does not, _cannot_ , give up on her.

When a pimply boy with a coward's spine christens her the Ice Queen, spitting the title with a tainting burn, it takes the combined strength of Octavia, Jasper and Raven to drag Bellamy's fists aside.

When her orders are too sharp and the kids begin to mutter belligerent dissent behind her back, he hounds them with his gaze until they crumble into silence.

She shatters all of them equally and unreservedly, including those who held her side from the very beginning. Even Jasper and Monty are falling back these days; it takes madness to beat oneself against an ice wall after all. Madness or a certain type of masochism. Which he often wonders is where he comes in…

'Give it up Bell,' Octavia growls one bitter night, reeling from another frigid encounter with the shade of the camp's lost princess. 'Clarke's gone. And no amount of wishful lecturing on your part is gonna change what's leading in her place.'

And it astounds him, even after a life like his, how quickly they forget the goodness that a person was.

_Give it up Bell._

But he can't. Sheer Blake stubbornness perhaps? He's never been one to invest much of anything beyond Octavia, let alone in someone who rebuffs his every kindness. He certainly wastes no energy on those who would rather be left alone. Or at least he never used to…

Turns out it isn't easy to walk away from the person who changed your story, and she is written into his history as indelibly as the Caesars of Rome.

 

 _Where does it begin?_ This legend of his rise and fall.

In a wailing baby, placed bloodstained and helpless in a young boy's arms?

He has lived all his life in a metal coffin, caught in orbit amidst the pale stars and dark reaches of space. There is no beauty to be found within a dying spaceship's halls; all reality is grey and stale and fading… But his sister's eyes are blue.

Her very existence is a secret, yet she is more real than any other aspect of his life. Population laws be damned, he knows the real reason that siblings are forbidden: love like this is dangerous, restless. Every beat of his heart is the brink of a revolution.

No matter how he stacks these memories they always start with her.

 

_Where does it begin?_

In coming home alone?

In shuffling through the door at the end of every numbing shift, to feel only the haunted emptiness of a room he had once shared with the premonition of a prisoner and a ghost. To know that if it wasn't for him, if it wasn't for that foolish hope, that brotherly weakness, that fateful walk... That maybe. _Maybe, maybe, maybe_.

Uncertain regrets are where the darkness starts. One fleck of rotting shadow and his life spins out into the pitch black of a hurricane. He has no knowledge of how to control this brimming storm.

Perhaps he doesn't want to.

 

_Where does it begin?_

In the rebirth that is also an end?

 _Love like this is dangerous_ , he'd always known as much. He holds a gun and his hands tremble. Jaha can see it and thinks this fear will save him. (It doesn't.) The trigger pulls on the quaking of a tremor and there's no way to take this back.

Triumph is elusive, no time to wait for the Chancellor to die, no looking over his shoulder until he's falling (through space, through gravity, through the wreckage of himself). They land on Earth and he knows that more than just the landscape outside this dropship door has changed... But then Octavia is in his arms and her eyes are blue and regrets are for the weak. Regrets are for those who do not have a sister.

The only question now is, _where does it end_?

 

Earth sets him free and it turns out he's even crueller when left to his own devices. Power calls to the void inside of him: seize it now or become a slave. He takes the reins while preaching chaos. It is a mask upon a mask but they do not see it; well, maybe one of them does, but this is no longer a monarchy and she holds no sway down here.

Of course he cannot control them, but then that's hardly surprising, he cannot control himself. They listen to him when it suits them, so he says the words they want to hear, he kicks the crate from beneath a hanging boy's feet and never imagines how it will come back to smother him.

A Princess screams at him that he's not a killer, but she is really just a girl without a crown and his heart does not believe her. He feels the rush, the blur of a life moving too quickly; watches decisions take hold like an outsider to his own fate, the consequences of the past twisting through his lifeline and eclipsing his future without mercy.

_Sister, sister, this is all for you._

But is it?

Is it really?

Knife blades in the dark, broken wristbands and children hanging from the trees… he builds his throne upon a pyre of threats and lies, hauls himself to the pinnacle and toys with the matches; plays with the notion that he could make this small world burn.

 

He thinks he's winning until he loses Atom. It hurts more than it should because it was only ever meant to be the two of them - siblings against the universe - with no room for loyal criminals one might call friend. (Love like his can't be shared, it doesn't know how.)

'Kill me,' a pair of bloodied lips plead.

And he's trying, _he's trying_ , but his violence wasn't made for mercy.

It's on that day that she chisels her first mark; seeps indelible ink onto the pages of his story. A shake of her head, a whispered song; quiet conviction that sets his skin to crawling. Anger is a mask for him, a violent distraction to eclipse the ceaselessness of his fear. But she is calm strength with no face but her own, dauntless far beyond the stuttering of his brazen heart. And no, he doesn't understand her… but for the first time since the knowledge of her name, _he wants to_.

Taking the blade from his hand she does what he could not. The knife moves, _in_ , _out_ , with the smoothness of Atom's last breath. She turns death into a kindness. A _kindness_.

What does she mean for a sinner like him?

 

Next is the blazing comet from the sky. He cuts a radio from a podship to protect himself from his first crime and unwillingly commits a second. A wish for life - that was his only thought as he tore through the forest on the trail of that falling star - yet all his prayers have wrought is death.

Three-hundred souls now. They visit him when he sleeps and _this_ is what it means to be haunted. Nightmares blur the bounds between reality and dreams. _Wake up, wake up, wake up_. All he can do is keep on walking; cutting off the pieces of his soul that protest at what he's done; muttering her name like a madman in a desert: a reminder of where this all began (a reminder that it must be worth it).

_Octavia._

He will tear the world apart for her and they will curse his memory for it. She doesn't deserve him; no one does. What is left? A gaping need that destroys everything it touches. Of course no one sees that, no one ever has.

Except one.

'You always did what you had to do to protect your sister,' she tells him. ' _That's_ who you are.'

And he wants to believe that's all, that the world can be so simple. He knows what she's searching for, she's hoping for a reason. And the truth is there is one. But the truth is that it isn't good enough. Not for this.

Jaha may live, but the Ark is dying.

_Three-hundred souls._

He doesn't know who he is anymore but she keeps on telling him.

'You're not a murderer.'

_But he is. He is. He is?_

 

They become slowly aligned and it is an unexpected harmony. He doesn't know what to make of it, to have a girl formed of rules and certainty so closely bound to his chaos.

He thinks perhaps he will do better with her here.

He doesn't.

At her nod he does far worse.

He tortures a man until blood flows like rivers, and he knows that this short time in the light of her shadow is already ending; that as he lets the lash fall she will scramble back to places where the sun still remembers to shine. Because even though the command was hers she can't possibly understand what it means to stand beside him. They never do. He is used to being the bullet in someone else's weapon, and used to being abandoned beside the bodies that he creates. They say the lone wolf dies without a pack, but he's spent the last two years learning to bear himself alone.

And so he swings the lash, and he takes that metal spire and rams it through another human's hand, and he sees the effect it has on her, the burden of being at his side. She's turning grey, sharing in his darkness. Did no one ever tell her that salvation comes at a price? Even when you are the one doing the saving…

And he tells her she doesn't have to be here for this, he offers her a way out (yes, her alone). It is a kindness for a kindness. _Take it now and let us be done_ , he thinks.

But she does not leave.

_She does not leave._

(Perhaps they are not so different as he thought.)

 

Self-hatred, thy name is Bellamy Blake.

He is collapsed beneath a tree surrounded by ghosts, both real and imagined. Clarke is hurt and Dax is bleeding out into the soil of Earth, and Bellamy Blake is not dead and he does not understand why.

She shot first. The bullet was a dud and the rifle jammed and Dax came far too close to filling their leader with 100 year old lead… but _she pulled the trigger first_. Someone else on this godforsaken planet was prepared to kill one human to save another. And that someone was her. And that someone was him.

Dax's blood is a red glove upon his hand, he doesn't try to wash it off. He meant to kill him and he succeeded. _This_ is the first time (yet it feels like the tip of a fucking iceberg).

He's heard it said that one decision does not define a man. What would they say to him? To all the choices that have led him down this road, all the lies and trigger pulls and severed radios.

_Monster, monster, monster._

He spits the word into the night, feels the tears slide and they are all for him. Because what he really wants to say is that he was only trying to be the hero, and yet that's impossibly far from the truth of what he's become.

A monster who wanted only to save someone? It's ridiculous. He can't even get the face of wickedness on straight. He is a mask of shattered fragments: son, brother, protector, killer, servant, tyrant - none of them fit quite right. Beneath their ruins he is faceless, nothing more than regret in the shadow of a man…

'I need you.'

She's utterly serious. She always is.

Foolish girl, nobody needs him. Not even his sister. And yet… she is not foolish, he knows that much. All the respect he cannot grant himself he has given to her in these past few days.

'We _all_ need you.'

And it's impossible but it feels like forgiveness; and when he looks into her eyes he believes it. This face that she sees, this face that she needs, perhaps it is his own.

(No matter how he writes this story, it always ends with her.)

 

It's not just Octavia now, and it terrifies him, and it saves him. They look at him and he inspires them… The man who's done nothing but hate himself for years _inspires_ a hundred restless youth to keep on living, to keep on fighting.

And perhaps little changes on the outside for him, but when he looks at her in their quieter moments he cannot help but wonder…

_Do you see?_

_Do you know?_

_Do you realise what you've done?_

He remembers all of this in the years down the line, when her eyes are hollow and her light is fading; after all, how can you forget the spark that kept your soul alive? And he swears on all the mistakes he's made, on all the people he has failed, that she will be different.

That he will live to see her smile once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was very touched by all the feedback on the last chapter, thank you so much to all the readers who care enough to see this through and leave some love along the way <3 I'm planning to actually introduce some plot next chapter, rather than simply miles and miles of character analysis! ;) I'll be working on the next instalment whenever I can over the next week, and feedback really helps me through the creative process... So please and thank you my lovelies <3


	4. The Devil Would Have You Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This next segment has ended up rather larger than I initially intended, so it will be split across two chapters ;) Enjoy!

She's arguing all the while as he edges her towards the dropship door.

'I shouldn't be leaving the patients-'

'Oh _lay off_ , Clarke.' He stifles a groan at what must be the _tenth_ repetition of that phrase. 'As if they can't manage the ancient art of survival without you for a few hours.'

Half-a-dozen bloodshot eyes sharpen accusingly amidst the echo of his words, unease rising from the surrounding hospital beds with an equal reek to blood and antiseptic as the patients observe Clarke's imminent departure. One young man in particular stammers into protest, but thankfully their chief medic has grown desensitised to most anything below the decibels of an agonising scream these days; turning aside to the supply closet without heeding the growing agitation. As soon as her back is turned Bellamy douses their objections with his most fierce army-general glare; readjusting his rifle strap with a pointed (if ultimately empty) reminder of his method of influence.

In truth he should probably feel sorry for them, but all he can think right now is that they've grown too dependent by far (quite the feat with someone as reserved as Clarke). She spends every day-lit hour, and most of the evenings besides, locked inside these metal walls ordering them not to die. The least they could do is show her a morning's reprieve.

'Remind me again why Monty can't go with you,' she huffs, drawing him to her side as she gathers together the erratically-bound stack of mismatched papers and salvaged notebooks that she and Monty use as a botanist's grimoire. It’s filled rapidly over nineteen months, bursting with Clarke's meticulous sketches and Monty's pencilled notes; knowledge from both Earth Skills classes and the Earth itself. Even Lincoln has played a part, dictating additional facts to be inscribed around the margins.

'I told you, I sent him out with Jasper and Monroe,' he replies dismissively, scuffing his feet on the dusty floor and treading careful circles round the lie.

Her responding gaze is cool and weighted like the scales of judgement. 'You know I don't agree with sending Monty out.' She's always had something of a soft spot for the camp's resident engineer come agricultural expert. But then again, who doesn't? 'He's too valuable to risk.'

It's an uncomfortable situation, and one he is oddly unfamiliar with when it comes to her. Lies should always be simple: coated grains of truth strung together in the straightest line towards your goal. Let others fill in the complexities, he'd taught himself this much. But a little elaboration is necessary when it comes to a recipient like Clarke. Vagueness serves no favours with someone who scents out illogicality like a bloodhound.

'The patrol needed his skills. We're trialling the new snare systems, the ones I outlined to you last week? It requires mechanical expertise and Raven's stationed at the boundary watch for the next three days.'

A disapproving _'hmmmm'_ is her only reply.

The truth is both simpler and infinitely more complicated.

He wants to get her out of this dropship; into the light, beyond the camp's claustrophobic walls and the stench of death. Yet she is (unsurprisingly) near impossible to budge when she's set her mind against it. Thinking back on a week's worth of failed efforts is enough to make him cringe.

……

His first endeavour was an unquestionable disaster.

'Jasper found a frog in camp.' How proud he'd been of this little ingenuity, tempting her out with the novelty of an amphibian. 'Have you seen one yet? They're way slimier than the books described.'

Pausing in her re-organisation of the medicine cabinet, he could see the search engines whirling behind her eyes, cataloguing taxonomic ranks – phylum, class, order, family – until she alighted upon the correct memory.

‘Frogs?’

A narrow line creased between her brows and suddenly she was on her feet; his hope plummeting like a meteor.

‘Is Monty with him?’ She shouldered past, striding for the door with the rhythm of a war drum. ‘Amphibians can be poisonous, especially after the god-knows-what effects of radiation. He didn’t touch it, did he?’

Bellamy envisioned Jasper – ushering the green and black creature onto his palm for closer inspection – and leapt to intercept her at the door.

‘On second thought, maybe you should just stay he-‘

She’d shot him a withering glance and flung open the tarpaulins at the dropship entrance, voice cutting through the camp like the toll of a judgement bell.

_‘Jasper Jordan! Put that animal down, right now.’_

The next hour was spent forcing one of Lincoln’s anti-venoms down Jasper’s throat and Bellamy would have made himself scarce if he didn’t care so damn much. She held off the cursing until Jasper was out of the red zone… and then she let loose, doling out furious reprimands to both boys alike.

He balefully wondered if he’d developed some kind of addiction. Sticking around her… he was obviously a sucker for the front lines.

……

His subsequent attempts were no more successful (if less life threatening).

_…_

_'I'm taking a group down to the river, do you want to come?'_

_…_

_'Monty could use your opinion on a plant… Care to step outside and give him a hand?'_

_…_

_'We're re-hashing weapons training this morning; you should brush up on the rifle range.'_

_…_

_'Raven pulled a music player out of one of the car wrecks. She thinks she can fix it if we source the right batteries. A music player. Clarke. Hello?'_

_…_

Each time she would out-manoeuvre him, finding some excuse to stay rooted to the med bay and bring the action inside.

_Duty-bound_.

The term had never found so apt a mistress.

……

And so here he is, finally resorting to the only tactic that remains to him: targeting her survival instinct and medical expertise. His reported discovery yesterday morning of a new Eden-like glen of medically-useful plants (an utter lie) was his first success at sparking any genuine interest in her. On Bellamy's orders, Monty had become unusually difficult to locate in the subsequent hours, and by the time Clarke's predictable attempt to delegate the role of botanical identifier had coalesced, he was long gone from camp. In truth, Monty, Jasper and Monroe were enjoying a well-earned morning off by the river, but there were some things an overly suspicious Princess just didn't need to know.

Now, with a final unconvinced glare at her patients, Clarke strides ahead of him through the dropship door. Turning for a final assessment of his own, he points a warning finger at the watching faces as he reverses through the tarpaulin.

'Don't you dare stop breathing while she's gone.'

One stride into the daylight and he collides abruptly with her back.

_Damn it. What now?_

The day's hunting party is gathered around the morning fire, yawning and loading rifles between bites of breakfast… and every single one of them is staring, bullets and flat bread slipping from their hands as Clarke Griffin stands on the dropship ramp and blinks at the sight of her kingdom.

That's the reality of it.

That's how rarely she steps outside the med bay, let alone with an intention to breach the wall.

'Clarke?'

Her face is a careful mask which yields no secrets.

'I'm not sure this is our best plan.' Weight shifting, she leans back towards the door. 'We shouldn't both be heading outside the walls, it's an unnecessary risk. Handing two leaders to the Grounders on a silver platter?' She shakes her head with conviction. 'And I _shouldn't_ be leaving the patients.'

'Would you stop _fussing_ -', he begins in exasperation, but a sharp shout interrupts.

' _Hey._ Keep it moving down there. This is a walkway, not a viewing platform.'

Balancing a basket of used bandages on one hip, Octavia marches from the dropship with all the incontestable force of a moving train, barging straight into Clarke's back. Bellamy braces himself for the inevitable battleground.

Relations between the two girls have been tense ever since Clarke turned cold. He wasn’t surprised when their fighting began; his sister is a wolf's hackles after all, baited on an instinct and always ready to rise. Fierceness like hers will never be caged voluntarily, nothing is held back, or hidden, or trapped within; a grating, snapping contrast to Clarke's ever increasing reservedness. Octavia never concealed her peculiar intolerance for Clarke's methods... or for what she has become. They draw out the inner dragon in each other like little else; a fire and ice duet.

Pursing her lips, Clarke endeavours to move aside but Octavia hustles in behind her, inching them both down the ramp as she continues her tirade.

'I thought you were heading out for more supplies today?'

Clarke's feet scrabble for resistance, half turning as she opposes Octavia's movement.

'We're re-formulating the plans.' An elbow to the stomach receives a none-too-gentle shove in return. 'I think Monty would be more approp-'

But Octavia speaks right over her. _God damn, but she has some nerve._

'-Because we're running low on willow bark, red weed, plaintain, yarrow…' slender fingers count off the necessities under Clarke's nose with clear intent to annoy. 'We can't rely on the medipacks for cures we could make ourselves; there's hardly an infinite supply of antibiotics or morphine, and it cost us dearly enough to get the first lot-'

With a ferocious twist Clarke breaks line and whirls upon the other girl.

'Don't tell me how to run my own hospital, Octavia.' Her voice is a knife blade of warning. 'I'm the medic here; I know what our patients need.'

Their gazes lock, unconcealed ire burning in their eyes.

'Then what are you waiting for, Princess?' He forgets sometimes that his sister was the first to coin that name. 'Somebody to collect them for you? Because we don’t work like that down here.'

He's already moving to intervene in the atomic-grade explosion that is doubtlessly brimming to erupt when Clarke suddenly nods her head; a short, sharp acquiescence. If there is one thing Clarke Griffin cannot withstand, it is the logicality of truth; no matter the implications of its nature.

Stepping grudgingly forward of her own accord she severs from the shadow of the dropship, and the muscles in her throat creak like disused hinges as she swallows down the sunshine. It makes him pause... There is so little vulnerability about her. Even after all these years he is still misdirected by the fierceness with which she plays her role – yes even _he_ , who should know so much about layers and masks and faces that are not our own, never thought to consider that she might actually be afraid.

Readjusting his perspective, he watches the way Clarke's footsteps stutter at the end of the ramp. The iron stiffness of her spine, reinforced by courage laid too thickly for such inconsequential demand. The way Octavia's fingers shift and tangle (almost accidentally) with those of the woman beside her as they descend... Until finally he recognises what his sister immediately saw (for it is no less than a fragment of her own story re-told).

It is the stride of a girl whose entire existence has shrunk to the confines of a single room.

And for whom the dropship, despite all its gore-stained horrors, has become the one place in which she retains some blessed measure of control amidst a ceaselessly unpredictable and treacherous world. _A safe haven_.

Which means that the cool indifference on her face... is nothing but a trick. A sleight of hand.

And if what she portrays is so different from how she feels, then perhaps there is more hope in this than he ever dared imagine.

 

Slowly the camp resumes its morning activities around them; Octavia splitting off in the direction of the wash room, sleepy teenagers scattering from her path with a speed born of equal parts awe and fear. Chuckling at the sight, Bellamy collects the weapons – a rifle for himself, a pistol for the princess – while Clarke organises the maps.

She zippers her backpack with a quiet finality as he tilts his head towards the gates.

'Wanna go for a walk, Princess?'

And one boot in front of the other, she follows him out of camp

                                                                       ……                                                                      

It takes them nearly an hour to reach the glade. Which considering it’s less than a mile from camp, is bordering on ridiculous. When Clarke takes on a task she does so with relentless focus and he's already regretting his choice of cover story. She's got them stopping at every bush and groundcover and miserable clump of weeds they come across, dragging her behemoth of a notebook from the backpack every time to compare leaf variegations and petal shapes with Monty's notes; marking symbols on the map when she identifies something useful.

At some indistinct point between a rhododendron bush and a witch-hazel shrub, they disturb a rabbit from the undergrowth and Clarke's weapon is drawn more quickly than the snap of the snare which ends the creature's life. She re-holsters the gun immediately and without comment while he retrieves the dead animal from the trap, but he saw the steadiness of her hands and the vicious blaze rising in her eyes. He recognises the part of her that wished for something more culpable than a rabbit to draw her blade upon.

_Do not let her quietness fool you_ , he thinks, _she is tip-full of rage and only waiting for a chance to show it_.

 

She's haranguing him about amendments to the border patrol schedule when he ushers her through the final leafy corridor that ends in their destination, and she halts midsentence at the sight.

It’s the prettiest glade he's found so close to camp, just the sort of place Octavia would love. He'd been saving it for his sister in fact; one of many hoarded ‘gifts’ kept waiting in the archives – pre-emptive apologies for the next time he inevitably falls beyond her favour. But it will serve a different purpose today.

The morning light is strong and slanted, refracting off the blooming humidity with a radiance that sets the very air ablaze, and he doubts even Clarke could have painted the scene more beautifully. Most important however is not the clearing at all, but rather what stands within it. The creature tethered to the tree is watching them keenly, its dark ears pointed in curiosity and muzzle twitching at their scent. The smooth hairs of its coat settle in a flat dusty black (the kind that sucks light in, instead of reflecting it), save for an irregularly-shaped white bloom of colour, tucked high upon its forehead and dwindling in a pale stripe down its nose. A low wicker of greeting echoes between the trees and Clarke sways ever so slightly from her standstill.

In earlier days, he would have been able to detect at least a whisper of what she was feeling; even through the armour of her practicality and unwavering sternness there had always been a tell-tale spark just waiting to go up in flames. In truth it's that taunting, treacherous past that brings him crawling back, despite countless failed attempts to reach her. The notion that she's in there somewhere, that if he just keeps sifting, scrabbling through the rubble of these impartial bones… that maybe one day he will find her again.

Yet the tension in her stance right now is not what he had been hoping for; palms fisting, lips pressed into carefully contained oblivion as her eyes dart over the scene, latching onto every corner of the story. When she turns on him she is anything but moved; her voice disappointingly cold.

' _What is going on_?'

He'd brought her here chasing a memory, so caught up in what he missed he'd forgotten the depth to which she was not that girl any longer. It's been so long since she locked away that part of herself, and as with nearly everything Clarke Griffin does, she's finished the job far too well.

Blue eyes narrow dangerously as he fumbles for an answer (feeling suddenly and overwhelmingly foolish) and he curls his toes forcibly against the soles of his boots to keep from retreating backwards.

'God damn it, Bellamy… I left the hospital for this!' She gestures wildly at the horse. 'I don't even know what ' _this'_ is. Why is there a horse here?'

_Because I thought you'd like it._

But he cannot possibly say that, not if he wants to survive her.

'…and I swear to God if you tell me you stole if from the Grounders then I'm voting you onto border patrol for the next month.'

That 'culpable' someone she was looking for earlier? It just became him. _Who needs Grounders when you can have Clarke Griffin at your side_?

But he would be lying if he said there wasn't a part of him that yearned for this, that took whatever passion it could find from her.

'Alright, alright,' he finally drawls, hands raised; layering on the indifference like armour to his soul. 'Just let me explain.'

Measuring him warily, she crosses her arms, barely withholding the inferno.

'I found the horse wandering outside the Grounder's camp with a broken tether-'

Her arms unfold threateningly.

'-no, just hear me out, I'm not making this up I swear. I saw the opportunity and I took it. Earth has been our home for far too long for us to not be using all of its resources. _This_ ,' he gestures emphatically at the horse, 'is what we've been missing.'

He takes her disbelieving silence as encouragement.

'Domesticated animals, livestock farming... imagine the possibilities. It would see us through winter, cut down on hunting... And horses – _horses_ have been used in warfare since the Bronze Age. It's time we stepped up our game.'

She untwists her frown ever so slightly. 'It would take a huge effort to implement. Are you sure we have the resources to spare? Trapping deer, building additional fences... The logistics alone-’

He interjects eagerly. 'Give it to Monty, he loves this stuff.'

'The Grounders are going to be seriously pissed off.' Turning away from him, she peers appreciatively at the animal. 'This one doesn't even have two heads; I'd bet it's pretty valuable.'

'I don't give a damn what the Grounders think.' For the first time since their arrival he dares to move up beside her. 'They can hardly get any worse.'

And with a grim curl of her mouth she inclines her head. 'I suppose.'

Following her gaze towards the stallion, he admires its regal profile.

'Besides, if the Grounder Princess has a horse then it seems past time ours should have one too.'

The silence coils immediately into something pointedly curious. _Did he say that out loud?_ When he can bear to shift his eyes sideways, she's staring at him with open-mouthed incredulity.

' _Grounder Princess_?'

His words tangle as he throws them out like a smoke screen, face beginning to burn. ' _Anya_. Don't look at me like that. Raven said it first. No seriously, shut up…’

She smooths a fist across her mouth and he wonders, ever so briefly, if there's a smile somewhere behind her hand.

Shaking her head as if to clear it, she murmurs, 'You could have just told me. Instead of making up this ridiculous cover story about plants – as if you'd recognise a willow from a birch tree.'

He grins wryly. 'Have you _met_ you? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to get you out the dropship door? You would never have come.'

'Maybe if you'd explained it like this…'

But they both know it isn’t true.

'Clarke. You wouldn't have come.'

'I'm sorry.'

Those words from her mouth are indecent.

'Don't. Don't apologise for doing your job. Not to me.'

She nods slowly, holding his gaze as the words sink in. He skirts around her while she's thinking and bends himself into an ill-practiced entertainer's bow.

'And so, Princess – and keep in mind I'm giving you a huge hint here – if you could make a wish right now, what would it be?'

Her lips may remain stern but her eyes are something akin to smiling (and in this moment, that's the only thing he cares about).

'I'd like this war to end,' she murmurs, never completely able to downplay their reality, and he rolls his eyes in defeat, ignoring the twinge in his heart.

'I'll see what I can do. In the meantime though, will you settle for a horse?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is planned to pick up directly where this one left off, introducing our newest furry friend - who proves to be quite the challenge!
> 
> *NOTE: deepest apologies to my beautiful readers but this story will be on-hiatus until further notice :( Life is proving too demanding for me to continue this at the present, but i look forward to finishing it one day in the future! Until then, love and well wishes to you all <3


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